Fork lift vehicles are commonly employed on warehouse and factory loading docks to move and store palletized loads on or from truck trailers.
Normally only a single width pallet, or stack of multiple pallets, is to be lifted by a fork lift vehicle. This is dictated by the fact that the fork lift vehicle is usually a narrow width vehicle, and in order to avoid lateral tipping, the center of gravity of the load being lifted should be located as close as possible to a vertical, medial, longitudinal plane of the vehicle.
While some U.S. Patents have disclosed attachments to fork lift vehicles, such as lateral extension plates in U.S. Pat. No. 3,023,919, or solid base plate attachments as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,283,933, or triple-tined attachments as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,675,139, or laterally extensible tines as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,754,673, none of said patents suggest lifting two side-by-side pallets, or pallet stacks, by a standard fork lift vehicle.
The unloading or loading of a trailer that has two longitudinal rows of adjacent side-by-side pallets or pallet stacks would be facilitated, at substantial cost savings, if a pair of adjacent side-by-side pallets, or pallet stacks, would be unloaded or loaded simultaneously by a single fork lift vehicle entering longitudinally of the trailer through its open rear end.
Due to the normal eight foot width of the trailers, the loads are arranged for shipment on a pair of adjacent pallets which occupy substantially the full trailer width. The loaded pallets are usually stacked atop one another so as to occupy, as near as possible, the full height of the box car or trailer. Dunnage is then added to fill in areas not occupied by the palletized load, and thereby prevent shifting of that load.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide an attachment for fork lift vehicles which will permit said vehicles to simultaneously unload a pair of adjacent, single width pallets.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an attachment for fork lift trucks which is longitudinally and laterally elongated to simultaneously support a pair of stacked, single width pallets.
These, and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to persons ordinarily skilled in the art from a review of the following description of a preferred embodiment and the appended claims.